“The idea that we’d have this ethnic purification as a condition for
peace, I think it’s anti-peace.” Yes indeed Netanyahu has a point
about peace and American values, but he fails to apply the same
exact logic to Israel's brutal mistreatment of the native non-Jewish
Palestinians who have been refused their inalienable right to return
to original homes and lands since Israel first started pushing them
into forced exile more than sixty years ago.

Hussein Ibish points out in his most recent op-ed, US has a responsibility to rein in Israeli
settlements http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/us-has-a-responsibility-to-rein-in-israeli-settlements,
that "Hamas at least can claim to have established agency,
initiative and momentum. Israel’s latest settlement activity seems almost
calculated to play into their hands. It certainly delivers another
brutal blow to Mr Abbas and all those who seek a negotiated
agreement. It undermines the credibility of potential
negotiations, and of the negotiators themselves."

Israel is playing a very VERY dangerous game of exasperating despair
as well as religious extremism on all sides.

As Ziad Asali points out in his most recent op-ed Confronting
ISIL: The Day and Decade "After""There is a
vicious circle of mutual self-reinforcement between state and
society failure on the one hand and the rise of extremist
non-state actors on the other."

A fully secular two state solution to once and for all end the
Israel-Palestine conflict ASAP is the best way forward. No more
dithering, no more distractions, no more red herrings, no more shell
games: Religion should be a personal private matter, not a state
funded dictate determining who gets freedom, jobs, subsidized
housing, security, justice, peace, and praise.